My Story for Today

Home.

Well, here we are. Its the end of my trip. As you read this I’ll be in an airplane over the sea, returning to my (hopefully warm and sunny) prairie home. Its been fifteen weeks, seven countries, and 64ish blog posts since I left home.

All in all, I’d say that this trip has been probably the best experience of my life. I can’t think of one other specific thing that has felt so fulfilling in so many areas of my life. Its been unbelievably educational, both academically and otherwise. I’ve made new friends, new discoveries, and broadened my outlook on the world. I’ve visited the tombs of kings, seen ancient battlegrounds, climbed to the tops of cathedrals that were well established centuries before my country even had a name. I’ve learned about art, history, culture, and how to live out of a backpack for weeks at a time. I’ve learned to deal with living in close quarters with thirty room-mates and how to deal with living and travelling alone. And I’ve had a lot of fun too.

This will probably be my last post for a while, or maybe even my last post ever, so I’d like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for coming along for the ride. Thanks for humouring me when I ramble and kindly reading my thoughts when I need to write out my frustrations. Or maybe you just skip over those ones. Thats cool too.

I’ve passed along the link to this blog to quite a few people, friends and family, and I know that those people have passed it along to others, most of which don’t have tumblr, so I don’t actually know how many people have been reading about my travels, or indeed if anyone at all reads my posts. But if you have, know that it means a lot to know that someone out there might be appreciating my posts, even if I don’t know who you are.

Thanks again, and happy trails.

Westminster.

I may have mentioned this before, but one of my favourite things about The United Kingdom is that anyone at all, whether you’re a local or a tourist, a student or a homeless drifter, you can visit state owned museums free of charge. I’ve been taking full advantage of this have gotten so used to not paying that I’m genuinely surprised when I have to pay to see some tourist thing. This happened today at Westminster Abbey.

“Thirteen pounds? Thirteen pounds to see a church? Yeah right, I’m not paying that. I’ve seen a million churches on this trip, who cares if I miss one.” I got about five steps away from the front doors before my conscience stopped me.

“Are you really going to walk away from Westminster Abbey without actually seeing it? Don’t be stupid, go in there and pay the fee.”

“Well alright, but this had better be worth it.”

Shakespeare.

Right below Stonehenge on my ‘Great Britain bucket list’ was to see a Shakespearean play in The Globe Theatre. Or maybe it was right above. I don’t know, no such list actually exists. This one is perhaps a bit easier to understand than my desire to see Stonehenge. There was just one problem though. The Globe doesn’t start showing plays until June. Luckily for me, another Shakespearean playhouse exists. One that has plays all year round. This is the story of my visit to Stratford upon Avon, home to the bard himself.

A quick search of hostels in the town showed me that there was only one amidst the myriad pricey hotels. “I guess I’ll book here then. Not much choice unless I want to skip Stratford altogether.” So for the first time on my trip, I booked a hostel for myself without checking a map. I guess I assumed that no matter where it was, it would be close to everything since Stratford upon Avon is such a small place. “The only way it could be non-central is if it was’t actually in town,” I laughed to myself.

So the Stratford branch of the YHA (Youth Hostel Association) is two miles out of town. You have to pass through two other towns just to get there. How do I get there? Well I’m sure as hell not taking a cab. Looks like I’ll be walking. So after an hour walk with a 40 pound backpack on my shoulders I was finally there.

“How was the ride in?” The cheerful receptionist asked.

“Oh, I don’t have a car. I had to walk.”

“You didn’t have to walk! There is a bus you could have taken!”

Well didn’t I feel pretty silly. She passed me a bus schedule. I looked it over quickly and yep. No service on Easter Sunday. I had no choice but to walk. The good news was that normal service would resume on Monday. The bad news? Normal service buses stopped running at 6:00pm. My play didn’t even start until 7:15. Looks like I would be walking back from the play too. Whats worse, is that the forecast for Monday was rain. I would be walking for an hour at night in the rain. The things I do for Shakespeare. This had better be worth it.

Stonehenge.

So one of my ‘must see’ sites while traveling around Britain was Stonehenge. Why exactly? I don’t know. There’s just something about it that seems so amazing. No, not the fact that these men dragged massive stones across the country without wheels or horses, although that is pretty neat. I just find the idea of stone-age astronomy so amazing. Studying the sun with nothing more than rocks and markers? Thats probably just about the coolest thing ever. So anyway, I found a tour group in Bath that would drive me out there in the morning and take me back. Necessary you see, since its kind of in the middle of nowhere.

How was it? Super underwhelming. Super commercialized. You can’t get anywhere near the actual henge, you have to view it from a path quite a few metres away. They give you this audioguide to explain Stonehenge to you, in case you’ve never heard of it before and just happened to be strolling along the Salisbury plains and just stumbled across it. This guide was far from informative, which is understandable considering that Stonehenge is still pretty much a mystery to anthropologists, so it amounted to little more that unprovable theories and folk tales ranging from Merlin stealing Stonehenge from the Irish (yes really) and aliens building it, because thats what a alien would do if it was capable of travelling faster than light to anywhere in the galaxy. It would use its ship’s tractor beam to play with rocks on some distant planet.

I did find one point interesting though. In their audioguide they mention that a bunch of the stones are missing. Where did they go? Over the centuries, farmers smashed them up and used them as building material for houses and fences and such. By the tone, I could tell that they were trying to evoke a sense of “Those damn farmers! Ruining this beautiful monument for us!” This brought back a question into my mind, one that I had been struggling with all semester in Cortona, one that I still don’t have an answer for. Are these monuments really worth preserving?

Oxford.

So I visited Oxford a few days ago. It was pretty cool. I would describe it as one huge university campus. I (like many people I’d assume) was under the impression that there was an actually a place called Oxford University. That would be incorrect. No, the town is made up of a huge number of small colleges, campuses spread out all over town, which are collectively known as ‘Oxford University’.

Cathedrals.

Today I visited York Minister, York’s main cathedral. By this point in my trip you’d expect my reaction to be something like, “Oh, a cathedral? What a treat. I just don’t see enough cathedrals here in Europe.” Yes, even my internal monologue is dripping with sarcasm.

I saw seven cathedrals in Rome, four in Florence, two in Asissi, two in Cortona, one in Perugia, one in Venice, two in Barcelona, three in Paris, one in Bruges, two in Brussels, one in Edinburgh, and now one in York. Thats a grand total of twenty seven cathedrals I’ve visited on this trip. Along with countless chapels and smaller sites of pilgrimage. So what did I say to myself when I saw York Minister for the first time, towering over the town around it?

Haggis.

Ever since I got to the UK, I’ve been taking full advantage of all the local cuisine that I can’t really get at home. I know, you’re saying ‘wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. Wait. What. Is British cuisine? Well I’ll give you an example.

When I got to Edinburgh, I had completely forgotten all of my Scottish stereotypes. I was walking down the street, looking at stores and saying things like, “Oh yeaaaaah! Kilts. Bagpipes. Mel Gibson.” And then I saw the big one. I saw haggis advertised on the side of a pub. I’m sure as hell not going to buy a kilt or bagpipes, but yes, I could eat haggis. What an entirely Scottish thing to do. So that night for dinner, I went out to a pub and ordered this Scottish delicasy and a pint of their finest Scottish beer. Honestly though, after Berlin, the beer was nothing to get crazy about. Should have gone with some scotch.

Edmonton.

When meeting other travellers, the typical introductory question “what is your name?” isn’t very important. Nobody cares what your name is. They’re never going to see you again. I’m the same way I guess. For example, if I strike up conversation with someone on a tour I’m probably not going to address them by name in the next hour, so why even learn it? Instead the question people first ask each other when they meet (as might be expected in a group of travellers) is “Where are you from?”

I always start off by answering Canada. Its like a game, you start off by saying only the name of your country. Then if the other person is familiar with your country, they’ll ask you to be more specific. Unless you’re American. Then you do the opposite and start off with the name of your town for some reason, even though nobody knows where that is.

Sachsenhausen.

During my last weeks in Cortona, one of my classmates learned from the townspeople that one of the locals had gone missing that morning. They haven’t seen him for 12 hours. This might not seem like a big deal to us, but for an Italian man who has left Tuscany maybe twice in his life (as is common in Cortona) to disappear for a day is quite the mystery. Had he grown tired of country life and moved away? Maybe he was off visiting a secret mistress. Maybe a feud had driven him into hiding. Well, three days later the mystery was solved. He was found in the forested hills behind Cortona. He had hung himself.

When I found out, my response was quite typical of me. I said “Oh, that sucks” and immediately put it out of my mind. Some people in my program though, were quite distraught with the whole situation. They remained silent and depressed for a day or two, only speaking when they were talking about how sad it all was. Why though? None of us had ever met this man. We had never even met a member of his family, or a close friend. The only connection we had with this man was that we were briefly visiting the town which he had lived in his whole life.

“Its so sad though! He’s dead now, try to have some compassion,” they would argue back to me. Girls, if I shed a tear for every stranger that died within two kilometres of me, I would lead a very depressing life.

So why am I telling this story? I mean, I left Cortona weeks ago, this story no longer has any immediate relevance to my life. Well I was reminded of it when I visited Sachsenhausen today. A concentration camp about 45 minutes north of Berlin.

Smoothie.

So here in Europe I pay for everything with cash, I brought my debit card and mastercard, but haven’t used them to pay for anything yet. Because of crazy bank charges and the need to immediately pay off my mastercard bill. Cash is just easier. Except for this morning.